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A POEM, 

rPtOXOUNCED ON THE HUNDEEDTH A^s^NBTlESAEY 



Of the Incorporation of the 



EEDWOOD LIBRAE! COMPANY, 



AUGUST XXIV. MDCCCXLVII. 



WITH OTHEE COMMEMOEATIVE PIECES. 



BY CHARLES T/ BROOKS. 



PROVIDENCE : 

CHARLES BURNETT, JR. 

MDCCCXLVIII. 













.■.H^iAv^ft:; 



^^ 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



According to the original expectation and design, the prin- 
cipal Poem in this little collection would have appeared under 
the same covers with the Oration pronounced by Hon. "William 
Hunter, on the same occasion ; but, Mr. Hunter having conclu- 
ded to withhold from the public, for the present, the pleasure of 
seeing his interesting production in print, the author is left in 
the predicament of a bob without the kite, which should have 
borne it up on the popular breeze. For another reason the 
author regrets having to appear alone, namely, that the Oration 
would have explained beforehand many allusions in the Poem, 
— a deficiency which he has supplied, as well as he. was able, 
by the historical notes contained in this volume. 



IV INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The delay in the appearance of the Poem has been account- 
ed for by what has already been stated. 

For an account of the Library which gave occasion to the 
present performance, the author must refer his readers to Dr. 
David King's sketch of its history, in the introduction to the 
Eedwood Catalogue. 

A few pieces, mostly of a descriptive character, have been 
added, which it was deemed would harmonize with the main 
Poem, and which the author presumes he has characterized with 
sufficient indefiniteness in calling them commemorative. 

NEwroRT, July 18, 1848. 



AQUIDNECK 



AQUIDNECK. 

I 

A POEM. 

Hail, fair Acpidneck I though thine ancient name ' 
Sound strange, Rhode Island, in the mouth of Fame, 
It hath a music sweet to Fancy's ear, i 

To Nature, once, and Nature's children dear. j 

Time was when many a Narragansett heard ^ 
Melodious echoes in that homely word : — J 

The swell and cadence of the lonely sea 

Along whose marge he wandered, proud and free ; ] 

The song the air sang where his arrow flew, i 

The music waves made with his light canoe ; j 

The sweet, though saddening moan of wind and wave,- 
That, haunting sandy beach and pebbly cave, j 



8 AQUIDNECK, 

As evening fell, with low and tender sound, 

Like the Great Spirit's voice, went murmuring round. 

And when, on Philip's fields, some warrior fell,^ 

Or 'mid the Pequod's wild, exultant jell, 

Thy name and image, loved Aquidneck ! rose 

Between his dying senses and his foes, 

And fever-dreams the wounded exile bore 

Home to his wigwam-fire — his native shore. 

*' Aquidneck" — still it speaks to Fancy's eye 
Thy noble charms of sea and shore and sky : — 
The bold, bald rock that beetles o'er the surge, — 
The bold, green bank that hangs o'er ocean's verge, — 
The spray-wreathed headland, stretching toward the 

deep, — 
The clouds that on thy far horizon sleep, — 
And all the beauty, majesty and grace, 
Thou hast of Nature's chanp;eful, chansfelessface.'' 

Hail, pleasant isle ! as freshly shine to-day 



A POEM. 

The sky, the beach, the breaker and the bay. 

As when, slow-curling o'er the oakwoocl's green, 

Miantiuomo's council-smoke was seen,^ 

And in these waters bathed their locks of jet 

Thy dusky daughters, old Metaunamet ! 

Though gone thy ancient name — thine ancient race- 

Not yet is fled the Genius of the place. 

Though the pale settler's axe and war's rude hand^ 

Have felled the sylvan monarchs of the land, — 

And though, a skeleton, the sycamore^ 

Moans in the wind, and finds his leaves no more ; — 

Though the light deer no more thy greensward tread, 

And many a song of olden days is fled ; — 

Yet there's a glory haunts the sapphire sky, — 

The emerald slope and swell, — not soon shall die. 

Old Ocean's bosom heaves with pride for thee, 

And bends the eye of Day with love to see 

Thine inland beauty and thy seaward sweep, 

fair 'midst fairest daughters of the deep ! ^ 



10 AQUIDNECK, 

Then hail, sweet spot ! my heart's adopted home ! 
Where'er my feet may rest, — my fancy roam ; 
There's no green isle, on all the broad blue sea, 
Can win away the love I bear to thee. 
And shall I, then, in festive mood to-day. 
To aught less dear than thou devote the lay ? 
Italian skies are not so fair as thine, 
Nor suns of Classic Greece more calmly shine. 
Not more serenely sweeps the ^gean wave 
Round Scio's rocky coast or Homer's grave ; 
Nor yet where Orient Rhodes, thy namesake fair,^ 
Scents with her roses all the Asian air. 

Go, thoughtless, thankless ones, across the wave, 
And find a happier home — a greener grave ! 
Where Naples sits enthroned above her bay, 
With coasts and islands stretching far away, 
And in the deep horizon blend to view 
Mediterranean and Cerulean blue, — 
When stills the vesper-bell the booming oar, 



A POEM. 11 

To little Nisita's or Ischia's shore^" 
Comes the degenerate son of Latian sires : 
A transient gleam of pride his memory fires : 
A Roman Brutus once had sojourned there, — 
A Scipio breathed the consecrated air. 

In that soft clime, as our sweet poet sings," 
(Whose fancy somewhat lightly touched the strings,) 
" The winds are awed, nor dare to breathe aloud ; 
'• The air seems never to have borne a cloud." 
Our bolder winds, thank God ! breathe freely here. 
And sound the trump of Freedom, loud and clear. 
And oh, how gorgeous, in our western skies, 
Clouds that still see the sun, when daylight dies. 
And in triumphal pomp the firmament 
Receives the conqueror to his evening-tent ! 
Though no ' ' volcanoes send to heaven their curled 
"And solemn smoke, like altars of the world," 
Yet oft when, in our summer-sunset sky. 
Thy mountain-ridges, Cloudland ! meet the eye, 



12 AQUIDNECK, 

Volcanoes, there, 'mid purple vineyards, pour 

The o'erflowing lava to the skyey shore. 

At Epomeo's feet the placid deep,^^ 

Soft as an infant's bosom, smiles in sleep. 

" Nature is delicate and graceful there, 

" The place's genius feminine and fair." 

More manly here the Genius of the place, 

Where northern grandeur blends with southern grace, 

Where maned breakers prance across the bay, 

And o'er the rocks the spray-born rainbows play. 

Aquidneck — Isle of Peace ! not alway rest, 
With thee, the wearied winds on Ocean's breast: 
Not alway airy fingers, stretching o'er 
The tuneful chords, unseen, from shore to shore, 
Grlide, with low tones, across the watery floor. 
Yet in the maddest war of wind and wave. 
By frowning cliflf or hoarsely echoing cave, 
Whispers transcendent Peace, her lofty form 
Beauty reveals, and Grrace enrobes the storm. 



A POEM. 13 

But nobler native charms for tliee I claim, 
And nobler memories cluster round thy name, 
Ehode Island — name to Freedom ever dear ! 
Long dwelt in freedom Nature's Koman here, — 
Fresh as the woods and free as ocean's breeze, 
Lord of the isles and Sovereign of the seas. 
And when he went, — no blazing wigwam's flame 
Scared him away by night, — the white man came 
In peace and love — the red man gave his hand, 
And owned the Christian master of the land.^^ 
He in the forestrchild no heathen saw. 
Beyond the pale of Christ's protecting law ; 
No curse of Canaan, on that dusky brow, 
Woke in his heart the exterminating vow ; 
For he had come to build, beside the sea. 
An altar to the Grod of Liberty ; 
He saw in man a Brother, and above 
Beheld, enthroned in light, a God of love. 

We have a history, too, — a past, — and these, 



14 AQUIDNECK, 

And such, are our ancestral memories ; 

Nor need we seek alone in foreign climes 

Memorials of the early, twilight times. 

Speak ! thou stone mystery that o'ertopp'st the hill, 

Fort, baptistery, monument or mill, — 

Which, or what art thou ? say ! And is there, then, 

'^o faithful Mather's fact-compelling pen^* 

To let men know both whence and what thou art. 

And set at rest the antiquarian heart ? 

How long hath Time held on his mighty march 

Since first arose thy time-defying arch ? 

Did thus the astonished Indian gaze on thee, 

A mystery staring at a mystery ? 

A son of Canaan, shall we rather say,^^ 

Viewing the work of brethren passed away ? 

Was it Phoenician, Norman, Saxon toil 

That sunk thy rock-based pillars in the soil ? 

How looked the bay — the forest and the hill, 

When first the sun beheld thy walls, old Mill ? 

Alas ! the antiquarian's dream is o'er, 



A POEM. 15 

Thou art an old stone windmill, — nothing more !^® 

Nay, thou art more, old pile ! thou mark'st the day, 
When from these haunts the red man went his way ; 
When the faint smoke of the last wigwam fire 
Melted in air, and rose the Christian spire. 
Since then, what transformations hast thou seen, 
Around thy height of yet unbroken green ! 
A city rose — here Commerce moored her fleets, 
And roared and rattled through the narrow streets. 
Nor to the better wealth was Manhood blind ; 
The Muses here a genial seat could find. 
And Taste and Study reared this Temple of the mind. 
Then came rude War, and with far other fleets 
Whitened these waters, thronged these narrow streets ; 
And, scared by Vandalism's iron tread. 
Forth from their outraged haunt the Muses fled." 
Peace came — but not the Peace that once was seen — 
Now in the silent streets the grass grew green, — 
Those streets, alas ! whose very pavement-stones^^ 



16 AQUIDNECK, 

Were purchased, and resounded, with the groans 
Of men and women haled across the waves 
To Freedom's home, to be the freeman's slaves ! 
But, Grod be thanked ! now Peace and Freedom reign, 
Save where the mind hugs Passion's flower-wreathed 

chain. 
And Heaven and Hope once more serenely smile 
On this health-breathing, beauty-haunted isle. 

Hail, island-home of Peace and Liberty ! 
Hail, breezy cliff, grey rock, majestic sea ! 
Here man should walk with heavenward lifted eye, 
Free as the winds, and open as the sky ! 
thou who here hast had thy childhood's home, ' ' 

And ye who one brief hour of summer roam 
These winding shores to breathe the bracing breeze, 
And feel the freedom of the skies and seas. 
Think what exalted, sainted minds once found 
The sod, the sand ye tread on, holy ground ! 
Think how an Allston's soul-enkindled eye 



A POEM. 17 

Drank in the glories of onr sunset-sky ! 
Think how a Berkeley's genius haunts the air, 
And makes om* crags and waters doubly fair ! 
Think how a Channing, musing hy the sea/^ 
J3urned with the quenchless love of liberty ! 
What work God witnessed, and that lonely shore, 
Wrought in him 'midst the elemental roar ! 
How did that spot his youthful heart inform, 
Dear in the sunshine, — dearer in the storm. 
" The Father reigneth, let the Earth rejoice 
" And tremble !" — there he lifted up his voice 
In praise amid the tempest — Softened there 
By nature's beauty rose the lowly prayer. 
There as, in reverential sympathy, 
He watched the heavings of the giant sea, 
Stirred by the Power that ruled that glorious din, 
Woke the dread consciousness of power within ! 

They are gone hence — the large and lofty souls ; 
And still the rock abides — the ocean rolls ; 

2 



18 AQUIDNECK, 

And still where Reason rears its beacon-rock, 

The Powers of Darkness dash with angry shock. 

In many an anxious vigil, pondering o'er 

Man's destiny on this our western shore, 

Grenius of Berkeley ! to thy morning-height 

We lift the piercing prayer — " What of the night? " 

And this thy Muse, responsive, seems to say : 

*' Not yet is closed the Drama or the Day i'^" 

" Act well thy part, how small soe'er it be, 

" Look not to Heaven alone — Heaven looks to thee !" 

Spirit of Channing ! to thy calm abode. 

We, doubtful plodders of this lowly road. 

Call : "From thy watch-tower say, for thou canst see, 

" How fares the wavering strife of liberty ?" 

And the still air replies, and the green sod, 

By thee beneath these shades, in musing, trod, — 

And these, then lonely walls where oft was caught^' 

The electric spark of high, heroic thought, — 

And yonder page that keeps for ever bright. 

Of that great thought the burning, shining light, — 



A POEM. 19 

All these, with voice of power — of God, — to-day 
Come to the soul, and calmly, strongly say : 
** Be faithful unto death in Freedom's strife, 
*' And on thy head shall rest the crown of life." 

Freedom ! though men take thy name in vain, 
And bring strange incense to thy holy fane, — 
Though despots in thy name on thee have trod, 
And anarchs hurled defiance at their God, — 
Though self-styled freemen, spurning Law's control, • 
Have hugged the chains that cankered all the soul ; — 
Yet shall thy children not the less revere 
Thine awful form, thy lofty mandates hear. 
For what were manhood — reverence — without thee, 
God's eldest-born and image, Liberty ? 

Not here, at least, oh, let not here the soul 
Yield up its thought to any low control ; — 
Not here where, in the anthem of the deep, 
And of the chainless winds that o'er it sweep, 



20 AQUIDNECK. 

The spirit cries with multitudinous voice : 
" man ! lie free, he reverent, and rejoice !" 
Not here shall man, God's offspring, formed to rise 
And hold communion with his native skies, 
Cling to the creed that Ignorance is bliss. 
And Indolence is glory ! — not in this 
Great Presence, where the vast, unresting sea 
Wakes "thoughts that wander through eternity," 
Shall Conscience own a law save His whose will 
Saith unto Passion's billows : " Peace ! be still! " 
But here shall Reason, heaven-awakened, soar, 
On wings of Faith, to wonder and adore. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



23 



A KECOLLECTION OF THE ILLINOIS PRAIEIES. 



Ye boundless Prairies of the West ! 
When late my wandering footsteps pressed, 
For the first time, your fresh, green sod, 
How rose my swelling heart to God ; 
Whose blue, illimitable sky, — 
Great Nature's mild, maternal eye, — 
So pure, benignant, and serene, 
Looked down upon the silent scene, 
And seemed with tranquil joy to brood 
O'er all the lovely solitude ! 

Ye boundless Prairies of the West ! 
Where earth upheaves her teeming breast ! 



24 A RECOLLECTION OF 

Where few, as yet, and far between, 
Her cliildren in repose are seen, 
But where prophetic Fancy's glance 
Sees myriads crowd the fair expanse ; 
When first my eye, enraptured, fell 
On each far upland slope and swell. 
When, spread on every side, I saw, 
With mingled thrill of love and awe, 
The green earth rolling like a sea, 
Words cannot speak the extasy 
With which my spirit rose to Thee, 
My Father ! whose Almighty hand 
In billows rolled the unbroken land. 
Thy step below — thy smile above — > 
Did I not feel, thy name is Love ? 
My Father ? Inline ? And may I be 
Permitted thus to think of Thee ? 
yes ; the same impartial Love, 
That bends, in boundless blue, above 
Yon vast expanse of hill and plain, 



THE ILLINOIS PRAIRIES. 25 

Where solitude and silence reign, 
And which with food and gladness fills 
" The cattle on a thousand hills," — 
The God whose power and goodness feed 
The lark and lambkin on the mead, — 
He, in his goodness and his power, 
Hath brought me to this scene and hour ; 
And while with holy awe I fear, 
I feel a Father's love is near. 

Ye far-off friends of mine, who roam, 
This hour, perchance, by ocean's foam, 
Were ye but here to share with me 
My laboring bosom's ecstasy. 
Yon upland meadows to behold. 
Serenely bright in evening's gold, 
To see the red sun sink to rest 
On yon gi-een ocean's billowy breast. 
To see the moon with silver beam 
O'er earth's wide waste of waters gleam, — 



26 THE ILLINOIS PRAIRIES 



To share with you a scene like this, 



Methinks it were too great a bliss. 



Ye boundless Prairies of the West ! 
When in this toil-worn, care-worn breast 
The heart would else lie dull and cold. 
And life seem drear, and hope grow old, 
And faith in God's great goodness seem 
A miserable, mocking dream, — 
Methinks the memory of the hour. 
When first and last I felt your power, 
Should bid again my bosom thrill, 
My eyes with tears of rapture fill, 
And lift my heart in ecstasy, 
God of love ! my God ! to Thee. 

June, 1843. 



27 



A SABBATH MORNING AT PASCAGOULA, 



ON THE GULF OF MEXICO. 



Sweet, sweet Pascagoula ! so lovely and lone ! 
Fain would I, at 23arting, breathe back one faint tone 
Of tbe witching, wild music that floats round thy shore, 
And will float through my memory, till memory's no more. 
Fair hours ! with what peace o'er my musings ye steal, 
Too deep to confess, yet too dear to conceal ! 
Nature ! thy Sabbath — I spent it with thee. 
In the still, solemn woods — by the silent, glad sea. 
As sweet to my ear was the hymn of that morn. 
As if angels were singing creation just born. 
And angels were singing : Thine angels, Thou, 
To whom winds and waves chant, and the trembling 
leaves bow ! 



28 A SABBATU MORNING 

Tliougb no human priest's accents arose on the air, 

Yet the presence, God ! of thy spirit was there. 

The pine, with its ocean-like, spirit-Uke tone, 

How plainly it told that I was not alone ! 

And was not that green, old, moss-garlanded tree 

Arrayed in its rohes as a priest unto Thee ? 

And did not a sweet choral melody rise 

From woodland and waters, from shore and from skies ? 

And on tlie far marge of each sandy, green isle. 

Did not the calm spirit of gratitude smile ? 

And with her own lips did not Peace kiss the strand, 

As the wave glided silently up o'er the sand ? 

Sweet scenes I happy hours ! I must bid you farewell I 
Yet aye in my memory your spirit shall dwell. 
And often at eve, when the moon of young May 
Beams down on mine own northern waves far away ; 
And often at morn, when the breeze and the light 
Draw the curtain away from the dreams of the night ; 
And often at noon, when the birds and the bees 



AT PENSAGOULA. 29 

Hum a drowsy, sweet tune in the grass and tlie trees ; 
In the dim, solemn woods — by the silent, glad sea, 
Sweet, sweet Pascagoula, I'll still think of thee ! 

May 4, 1843. 



30 



TO THE MISSISSIPPI.'^ 



Majestic stream ! along thy banks, 
In silent, stately, solemn ranks. 
The forests stand, and seem with pride 
To gaze upon thy mighty tide ; 
As when, in olden, classic time, 
Beneath a soft, blue, Grecian clime, 
Bent o'er the stage, in breathless awe, 
Crowds thrilled and trembled, as they saw 
Sweep by the pomp of human life. 
The sounding flood of passion's strife, 
And the great stream of history 
Glide on before the musing eye. 



TO THE MISSISSIPPI. 31 

There, row on row, the gazers rise ; 

Above, look down the arching skies ; 

O'er all those gathered multitudes 

Such deep and voiceful silence broods, 

Methinks one mighty heart I hear 

Beat high with hope, or quake with fear : — 

E'en so yon groves and forests seem 

Spectators of this rushing stream. 

In sweeping, circling ranks they rise. 

Beneath the blue, o'erarching skies ; 

They crowd around and forward lean, 

As eager to behold the scene. 

Aye, these, to see, 'neath heaven's blue dome, 

Great Nature's spectacle, have come, — 

To see, proud river ! sparkling wide, 

The long procession of thy tide, — 

To stand and gaze, and feel with thee 

All thy unuttered ecstasy. 

It seems as if a heart did thrill • 

Within yon forests, deep and still. 



32 TOTIIEMISSISSIPI. 

So soft and ghost-like is the sound 
That stirs their solitudes profound. 



June. 1843. 



33 



THE LOST CLOAK.^* 



Air — "0/c? Ann Chairs 



I've lost it I I've lost it ! My frien's, 'tis nae joke 
To lose, in mid-winter, a cosy -aald cloak. 
Like a frien' it liad served me by nigbt and by day, 
And I fondly had tlioebt it wM last me for aye ; 
But I've lost it ! I've lost it ! oh terrible stroke 
To lose sic a faithfu'L«ald camblet cloak ! , 



How oft in the wintry and pitiless night, 
That akld shaggy black dog-skin drawn close round my 

sight, 
I've braved the worst wrath of the wind and the weather ! 
Oh, my auld cloak an? I ha^ been fast frjiis tl^gither ! 
But I've lost it ! I've lost it ! my heart is not oak, 
And I mourn for my faithfu' auld camblet cloak ! 
3 



34 TKE LOST 

At ife fresli moan o' the searching blast, 
Mj faithful old cloak wsfd but cling m^r fast, 
And tho' at times, when the wind blew high, 
That wee cape's corner would whip my eye, 
Yet I've lost it ! I've lost it ! And oh, 'tis nae- joke 
To love and to lose sip a faithful auld cloak ! 

To steal an auld cloak when the weather is cold, 
(So writes the wise preacher, famed monarch of old)^ 
Is like singing gay songs to a breaking heart. 
Don't sing me : " The best of frins maun part" ! • 
Fu' weel I ken it ! My heart is not broke, 
But I've lost and for ever a faithfu' auld cloak. 

Days — weeks — rolled by — and I hoped to see 
That faithfu' auld garment come back to me : 
Whole months have I waited — I've waited in vain, 
I never shall see that auld crony again. 
A voice from within me hath terribly spoke : 
' You've lost your faithfu" auld camblet cloak ! 



CLOAK. 35 

It never had entered my credulous heart 
That friens sic as we could be fated to part. 
Hope whispered, " That easy^wild fria* on thy back 
Shall never desert nor decay" — but alack ! 
'Twas only a dream, and I bitterly woke 
To the loss of my faithfu* auld camblet cloak ! 

They said it was hamely ; but oh ! around 
My warmest affections that cloak had wound ; 
They cafd it scanty — 'twas short, I know ; 
'Twad ha6 been l^ng enough ere I'd done with it, tho\ 
But I'll have it neb& longer — I've lost it^ — och ! 
I've lost sie a faithfu' auld camblet cloak. 

How I loved that auld cloak, and it was not because 
The we6l-worn camblet s^glossy-like was ; 
I loved it, but not for its beautiful blue ; 
I loved it because it was warm and true ; 
But alas ! our best hopes are but pillars of smoke, 
Farewe^ to thee, faithfu' jculd camblet cloak ! 



36 



AN OLD MAN'S SENSATIONS 



RETURN OF SPRING 



I feel thy breath, Spring ! 

The fanning of thy wing 
On these old withered cheeks — this furrowed brow ; , 

The childhood of the year, 

Its morning hour is here, 
And mine own childhood breathes around me now. 

That tinkling rivulet 

Goes singing, dancing yet, 
Still sparkling, gleesome, to the sparkling sky ; 

It murmurs in my ear 

A song I love to hear, 
A sad, yet soothing strain of years gone by. 



RETURN OF SPRING. 37 

'' Gone by" ! ah no ! for still 

My feebler pulses thrill 
With childhood's ecstasies of hope and joy ; 

Though scarce this worn-out frame 

Can bear the darting flame, 
It lives and leaps — once more I am a boy ! 

A painted butterfly 

Has just gone dancing by : 
Ah ! with him fluttered back those happy hours, 

When, a light-hearted boy, 

I chased the flying toy, 
And sank, at last, on earth's soft lap of flowers. 

Aye, childhood, thou art here, — 

Why art thou then most near. 
Bright morn of life, when death's still night draws nigh ? 

Is it that then the soul 

Feels, near her earthly goal, 
The heaven that floated round the infant's eye ? 



«Se EETURN OF SPRING. 

Yes, blessed Saviour ! thus 
Hast thou declared to us ; 

For child-like spirits only, heaven can see. 
And to a soul new-born, 
A second childhood's morn 

Shall be the daybreak of eternity ! 

Mobile, Ala. March 26, 1843. 



39 



THE LOST CHURCH. ^ 



Had ye a voice, ye venerable trees, 

What thrilling tales ye'd tell ! Yet, even now, 
Oft as, at eve, the sad autumnal breeze 

Mysteriously stirs each trembling bough, — 

And oft as spring renews your leafy green, 
And oft as kindling summer round you glows, 

And oft as winter clothes the naked scene, 

And crowns this hill-top with his weight of snows,- 

And at each hour of day, — when silent noon 
Broods o'er the town, the river, and the hill, — 

And when, at noon of night, the harvest-moon 
Silvers your dark-green branches, soft and still, — 



40 THE LOST 

And when the morning sun, behind your height, 
Wakes in their rustling nests the feathered choir, — 

And when the dying day's last lingering light 
Touches the topmost twigs with golden fire, — 

Strange sounds and spirit-like are heard, that chime 
With all the winds which through your branches sigh ; 

Voices that murmur of the olden time, 
The ghosts of generations long passed by. 

As, pensively, with reverent step and slow, 
I climb this hallowed hill, a stranger here. 

The thought of all the dead that sleep below 
Brings to my eye the tributary tear. 

Up this green steep, beneath this deep green shade, 
Each Sabbath morn and noon, for many a year. 

Came son and sire, matron and village-maid, 

And bowed in prayer, and sang God's praises here. 



CHURCH. 41 

Here stood for cMldhood's brow the sacred fount ; 

Here manhood on its God its troubles cast ; 
Here age climbed up, as to a Pisgah-mount, — 

Here paused, as to its last, long home it passed. 

In life's august procession all passed on 
To fill yon silent chambers of the dead ; 

And now the holy house itself is gone, 
Whose aisles once echoed to their frequent tread. 

Yet oft, beneath these green old oaks, e'en now, 
Forms of the buried past, unseen, sweep by ; 

And oft the pilgrim, on this hill's lone brow, 
Feels a great cloud of witnesses draw nigh. 

And though the old walls no more this summit crown. 
Still float strange tones of an unearthly bell, — 

Each Sabbath mom, and noon, and eve float down 
O'er town, and stream, and hill, and distant dell. 



42 THE LOST CHURCH. 

And thougli from out this green oak-shade no more 
The tall old spire shall rise to meet the sky, 

Long from the spot shall Memory heavenward soar, 
While Faith, with lifted finger, points on high. 

BucKSPOET, Me. Sept. 1846. 



L'ENVOI AILE.^^ 



When fields all bare and Wintry lie, 
And over-head the cold clouds frown, 

The Grod of mercy, from on high, 
Sends a soft, snowy covering down. 

The gauzy flalies, in stillness; fall 
On tree, and roof, and jutting eave ; 

A downy mantle over all. 

Of magic handy-work, they weave.'^ 

Calm as, in death, an infant sleeps, 
Beneath her shroud the pale earth lies. 

Yet here and there a myrtle peeps, 

And speaks immortal springs and skies. 



44 l'envoi 

O'er meadow, and by mountain side, 
Her table-cloth of spotless white — 

Now Mother Earth spreads far and wide, 
And pure hearts /eas^ upon the sight. 

The hay-stacks all about the land, 

In bold rotundity that rise, 
Like bridal cakes,*^' well frosted stand, 

To glad the cattle's greedy eyes. 

See the small Snow-Bird, hopping round ! 

A minstrel-mendicant, he comes ; 
"Where living thing none else is found. 

He from God's table pecks the crumbs. 

Chance reader of this flying leaf^ 
Whoe'er thou art, this night to thee 

There comes, with message big, though brief, 
A heavenly Snow-Bird, Charity. 



AILE 45 

He begs not for himself alone 

The cmmb of comfort, and the mite 

Of pity, but for them that moan. 
His homeless " little ones," to-night. 

God hears the ravens when they cry ; 

He hears the little span-ow's moan, 
When famished 'neath a wintry sky, 

She on the house-top sits alone. 

But wheresoe'er, in want and woe 

And sin, his human offspring be, 
Thither, man ! thy care must go — 

Thy word — thy help — God waits for thee. 

Children of Providence, whose lot 
In pleasant, prosperous scenes is cast, 

Listen this night and hear, in thought, 
The moaning of misfortune's blast ! 



46 * l'envoi aile. 

Lo ! many a famished spirit comes, 
Enters, unseen, this cheerful hall, 

And from these tables craves the crumbs — 
Let golden crumbs of mercy fall ! 

Hear what our little Snow-Bird sings, 

As through this hall, with trembling voice, 

He twitters round on paper wings, — 
Oh, hear and answer and rejoice ! 

Ye who poor starving souls would fill, 

And taste, yourselves, Heaven's best delight, 

To you our bird presents his hill, 
Audit, accept, and pay at sight. 



47 



BUCHENHEIM.^ 



The wailing wind, Buchenlieim ! 

Moans round thy halls, and through thy bowers ; 
Once more pale Autumn's sober time 

Looks on dead leaves and faded flowers. 

Yet not for summer-joys alone : — 

For faded flowers and withered leaves — 

For lost perfumes and songsters flown, — 
The sighing gale of Autumn grieves. 

The birds that used to come and sing, 

In all these woods, their blithesome strain, — 

Whose carols hailed each new-born Spring, — 
Have winged their way across the main. 



48 BUCHENHEIM. 

Soon shall their song, in Memory's ear, 
By wanderers heard in foreign clime, 

Win back their steps to scenes so dear, 
And make thee blest, fair Buchenheim ! 



49 



NEW ENGLAND PENTECOSTAL HYMN. 



Sung in Boston, Maj 25, 1847. 



When summer crowned the glowing year, 

And bade man's heart rejoice, 
Came Judah's tribes from far and near, 

With glad and grateful voice. 
They brought their gifts — they built their bowers 

In pleasant Palestine : — 
We heard it all in childhood's hours — 

In days and years lang syne. 

With festive hearts and festal rites 

Jerusalem was blest ; 
For to his old ancestral heights 

Came many a welcome guest. 
4 



«50 NEW ENGLAND 

They sang His name with grateful praise. 

Who blessed the corn and vine ; — 
We heard it all in childhood's days — 

In days and years lang syne. 

Year after year — age after age — 

The solemn joy came round, 
And from Jehovah's heritage 

Went up the grateful sound. 
And though enthralled, or exiled long 

From Zion's holy shrine, 
Remembrance dwelt with yearning strong 

In days and years lang syne. 

And oft, when May its first-fruits brought. 

And Pentecost passed by, 
Expectant Israel fondly thought 

Her summer, too, was nigh. 
For though the Gentile held his towers 

Within her walls divine, 



PENTECOSTAL HYMN. 51 

Hope saw in vision glorious hours 
And years like those lang syne. 

Moriah ! in thy place of prayer, 

The hour is coming now ; 
A boding hush is on the air, 

And on each reverent brow. 
In waiting stillness there tliey bend 

xVround a viewless shrine, 
With whose fresh hopes and memories blend 

Old dreams of years lang syne. 

Nor waited they in vain — it came, — 

In that m.omentous hour, — 
The rushing wind — the tongue of flame — 

The spirit and the power. 
'Tis lang — lang syne, my friends — 

'Tis lang — lang syne — 
But we'll ne'er forget our mighty debt 

To the men of Palestine ! 



52 NEW ENGLAND PENTECOSTAL HYMN 

The seed they sowed in tears and blood, — 

Wliat fruit untold it bore ! 
That sent new seed o'er many a flood 

And distant, darkened shore. 
'Twas wafted to our own loved land 

Across a stormy brine, 
And planted well by Plymouth strand 

In days and years lang syne. 

That seed has grown a mighty tree — 

That tree is growing yet — 
And we, the chil^lren of the free, 

Beneath its shade are met, 
Our Pentecostal feast to k^pp, 

And in our souls enshrine 
The sainted dead who fell asleep 

In days and years lang syne. 



53 



OUR COUNTRY — RIGHT OR WRONG." ^^ 



" Oui' country — right or wrong" ! — 

That were a traitor's song — 
Let no true patriot's pen such words indite ! 

Who loves his native land, 

Let him, with heart, Voice, hand, 
Say : " Country or no country — speed the right ! 

" Our Country — right or wrong" ! — 

Christian men ! how long 
Shall He who bled on Calvary plead m vain? 

How long, unheeded, call 

Where War's gashed victims fall, 
While sisters, widows, orphans, mourn the slain ! 



54 OUR COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG. 

" Our Country — right or wrong" ! — 

man of God, be strong ! 
Take God's whole armor for the holy fray. 

Gh'd thee with Truth ; — make Right 

Thy breastplate : — in the might 
Of God stand steadfast in the evil day ! 

" Our Country — right or wrong" ! — 

Each image of the throng 
Of ghastly woes that rise upon thy sight, 

let it move thy heart, 

Man ! man ! whoe'er thou art. 
To say : " God guide our struggling country right ! '^ 

Newport, 1847. 



NOTES 



NOTES TO THE POEM OF 
AQUIDNECK. 



^ Aquidneck, the old Indian name of this island, meant " the 
Isle of Peace." 

2 The Indian inhabitants of the island, generally, are here 
alluded to under the name of Narragansetts, as the Aquid- 
neckians were probably a part of that tribe ; and moreover, 
only a few years before the white settlement, they had been 
defeated in a war with the main body of the tribe on the main 
land, and the island had become subject to Canonicus and 
Miantinomo, the sachems of the north and sovereigns of the 
bay. 

2 It may be more than a poetic license to suppose that 
Aquidneckian warriors fought and fell under Philip, sachem of 
the Wampanoags : that they and the Narragansetts were at 
times in alliance against the Pequods of Connecticut, is a 
historical fact. Interesting and somewhat copious reminis- 
cences of things generally alluded to in the text may be found 
in the notes to the poem of " Yamoyden." 



58 NOTESTO 

^ There was a yague recollection in this line of some writer's 
expression about the human mind — "changed in all, and yet 
in all the same." 

5 Although this chief resided at Providence, it is poetically 
possible that he may have, at some pleasant times in summer, 
held a palaver on Rhode Island with his friend Wbnnametauna- 
viet, whose name is also mentioned in the next line but one 
(contracted for the sake of the measure), and after whom is 
named Tonomy or Tomony (now known as Tammany) Hill, 
near Newport. 

^ It ought to be stated, that not the British only, but the 
islanders themselves, cut down the woods on the island for fuel, 
when wood was twenty dollars, or almost any thing, a cord. 

'' The old distich called the staple of Rhode Island, 

" Button-wood trees 
And mutton and gees." 

^ Bryant, in his " Meditation on Rhode Island Coal," thus 
describes his first sight of the island : 

"Like a soft mist upon the evening shore, 

At once a lovely isle before me lay ; 
Smooth, and with tender verdure covered o'er, 

As if just ris'nfrom its calm inland bay." 

^ The name of Rhode Island was undoubtedly derived from 
its resemblance, in situation and other respects, to the Isle of 
Rhodes. The roses of Rhodes, which gave that island its 
Greek name, diffuse, it is said, their fragrance for miles round. 

" At the general court held at Newport on ye fifteenth of ye 
first month ; 

" It is ordered by this court, that the island commonly called 
Aquethneck" (the name was variously spelt) "shall be from 
henceforth called the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island." 



AQUIDNECK. 59 

'" These lovely islands are somewhat noted, historically also, 
for consultations held there by Brutus and Scipio, and others 
of the old conquerors of the world. 

^^ Pinckney. The couplet folloAving the quotation was sug- 
gested by a parlour criticism made on Pinckney's lines in 
playful mockeiy : — " The winds are awed , nor dare, &c. V — " / 
pitij them;" — "The air ... . never borne a cloud?" — "/So 
much the worse for it^ 

'2 Epomeo is a mountain on Ischia. 

^^ Truth requires us to tame a little, in the notes, the heroic 
tone of the text, by stating that the natives sold out and went 
oiF for forty fathom of ich'ite beads, ten coats and twenty hoes (more 
or less). See appendix to Elton's edition of " Callender's Cen- 
tennial Discourse." 

^'^ Faith-full (not faithful) means, here, full of credulity. 

^^ See Dr. Stiles's liypothesis, that the American Indians are 
Canaanites, " who fled from the face of Joshua, the robber, the 
son of Nun," according to the alleged Phenician inscription, — 
and also Longfellow's poem on the armed skeleton dug up at 
Pall Eiver. 

^^ Seldom has the Quixotism of antiquaries or their adver- 
saries encountered such a formidable windmill as the old stone 
one in Newport. It presents a puzzle as hard as the materials 
of which it is composed and cemented. While it has confess- 
edly been appropriated, in modern times, successively to the 
purposes of a windmill, a hay loft, and a powder house, the 
question whether it was originally designed for a fort, a watch- 
tower, a baptistery, or a mere windmill, has proved more 
difficult than any other — except the question when and by 
whom it was erected. Gov. Benedict Arnold, in his will, 
under date of 1G77, repeatedly calls it "my stone-built wind- 



60 NOTESTO 

mill." He directs that his body be buried " near the line or 
path from my dwelling house to my stone-built windmiU." 
Some infer, perhaps too confidently, from this language, that he 
built the mill ; and those who recollect the pulling down of the 
chimneys of his house, say that it was built with precisely the 
same kind of stone and cement. The structure was on the 
upper corner of Arnold's estate, which extended from Mill 
street to Greene, and from the harbour to East Touro-street; the 
dwelling house being just behind the site of the present Rhode 
Island Union Bank. Peter Easton writes in 1663, " This year 
we built the first windmill." May not this have been Arnold's 
stone mill? But Edward Pelham, who became possessed 
by marriage of the mill lot, calls the structure, in his Avill 
of 1741, simply "a« old stone windmill," standing in the lot 
" known as the mill field or upper field." Why should he not 
have called it Arnold's mill, if he had built if? A hundred 
unanswerable questions may be asked on any supposition, and 
the author leaves his readers as wise as they were before. 

^'^ The reference here is, of course, to the rude treatment the 
Redwood books received from the enemy during the occupation 
of the town. 

^^ I find in the records of the doings of our general assem- 
bly, an act, dated February 27, 1729, " laying a duty of three 
pounds per head on all slaves imported in this colony ; " and 
another, dated the third Monday of June, 1729, ordaining 
" that henceforward all moneys that shall be raised in this col- 
ony by the aforesaid act shall be employed, the one vioiety there- 
of for the use of the town of Newport^ towards paving and mending 
the streets thereof " 

'^ The rest of this paragraph is almost a versification of that 
oft-quoted passage in Dr. Channing's Dedication Discourse at 



AQUIDNECK. 61 

Newport, where he describes how much he owed to our coast 
scenery. He says : — " Yonder beach, the roar of which has so 
often mingled with the worship of this place, ray daily resort, 
dear to me in the sunshine, still more attractive in the storm. 
Seldom do I visit it now, without thinking of the work, which 
there, in the sight of that beauty, in the sound of those waves, 
was canied on in my soul. No spot on earth has helped to 
form me so much as that beach. There I lifted up my voice 
in praise amid the tempest. There, softened by beauty, I 
poured out my thanksgiving and contrite confessions. There, 
in reverential sympathy with the mighty power around me, 
I became conscious of power within." 

2^ A reference, of course, to the last of Berkeley's well- 
known verses written while at Newport ; 

"Westward the course of empire takes its ■way; 

The four first acts already past, 
Affth sliall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

2^ Dr. Channing says, in the discourse already quoted, " I 
had tAVO noble places of study. One was yonder beautiful 
edifice, now so frequented and so useful as a public library ; 
then so deserted, that I spent day after day. and sometimes 
week after week, amidst its dusty volumes, without interruption 
from a single visitor." 

General Note. In the fourth volume of the Rhode 
Island Historical Society's Collections, containing Callender's 
celebrated Century Lecture, the reader will find that Professor 
Elton has furnished many very interesting facts respecting the 
early history of this island ; a subject which, we trust, will ere 
long find some one amongst us with the time, taste, and talent 
to take it up, and unfold its wealth of various and curious 
interest. 



NOTES TO MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



22 Pascagoula is the favorite watering place of the Mobilians, 
and lies on a bay which is separated from the Gulf of Mexico 
by an island called Horn Island, sixteen miles long and only 
half-a-mile broad. In summer time a certain mysterious music 
is often heard there, which has been ascribed to various sources. 
Some suppose it to come from the drum-fish, others from a 
rock under water, others from a certain conformation of the 
shores, and some love to fancy it the murmur of an Indian 
ghost, or the wail of a tribe there driven into the sea. I never, 
myself, had the felicity of hearing it with my bodily ears, 
though I listened repeatedly under what seemed to me must 
be the most favorable circumstances. The evening on which I 
was rowed across the bay, on my return, was one of the most 
pure, balmy, heaven-breathing hours I ever spent with Nature : 
and as I looked up to the brilliant, studded sky, and down into 
a second, seemingly separated from it only by a thin, transpa- 
rent film, so that our little skiff seemed to hang in the centre 
of a perfect aerial sphere, and as I listened to the far echo of our 
booming oars, I said to myself, " Ah ! I have caught the secret 
of the mysterious music. 

'T is but the music of the spheres, 
Made audible to mortal ears." 



NOTES TO MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 63 

^ The river begins now to assert its name — "Father of 
waters." By its frequent bends and sweeps, it forms a series of 
noble lakes and seas. The woods of the distant shores rise 
majestically in terraces, formed by the successive underminings 
and sinkings of the banks which look over each other in silent 
and solemn grandeur do-uTi on the expanse of waters. They 
appear as smooth and regular as if trimmed by the hand of art. 
And so they were — the art of the Great Architect — the Great 
Jardinier (if one may without irreverence say so) of the uni- 
verse. Extract from Ms. Journal 

2* This piece is also commemorative of a fact. 

^^ "As one that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as 
vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart." 

^ These verses were written while men were in the act of 
dragging down a venerable meeting-house (previously beheaded 
of its steeple top, by the guillotine of these levelling times) from 
the oak-crowned hill, where it had so long stood sentinel over 
one of the most picturesque of New England villages, Bucks- 
port, on the Penobscot. The title of the piece, and probably, in 
some degree, the tone, were caught from Schillers " Verlorene 
Kirehe." 

^'^ Written for a Fair in behalf of the Bethel, in Providence, 
in the winter of 1846. 

28 " He giveth snow like wool." Psalms. 

29 «' Sweet day, so cool, so calm and bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky !" Herbert. 

30 Buchenheim, "Beech-grove," (from which is said to come 
the name Buckingham,) designates here a beautiful seat on 
the banks of the Seekonk, five miles from Providence. 

^^ This little piece was suggested, partly by reading some 
verses bearing the burden quoted in the text, and partly by the 
first news of our battles in Mexico. 



-^■'V>'iiS:V^h^f# 



